If Your Password's On This List Then You Should Change It Right Now

Back in October 2018, the world stared dumbfounded (for a few reasons) as we saw Kanye West in the Oval Office alongside President Trump and typed in his phone password - “000000” - in full view of the world’s media.

However, judging by the state of this list, many of us have no reason to mock Mr Kanye's incredibly hackable passwords. Cybersecurity group SplashData has published their annual list of the “worst passwords of 2018” based on 5 million passwords leaked on the Internet over the past year - and some of them are downright unforgivable.

A fair number of usual suspects return this year. “123456” and “password” retain their top two spots on the list for the 5th consecutive year, while “123456789” makes an entry at number 3. You can check out the top 20 below.

There were also some surprising entries in this year’s list. For example, “donald” came in at number 23, “freedom” was number 29, and “harley” was 39.

“Sorry, Mr. President, but this is not fake news – using your name or any common name as a password is a dangerous decision,” Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData Inc, said in a statement. “Hackers have great success using celebrity names, terms from pop culture and sports, and simple keyboard patterns to break into accounts online because they know so many people are using those easy-to-remember combinations.”

“Our hope by publishing this list each year is to convince people to take steps to protect themselves online,” they added.